Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Wait, is this the back left leg, or the middle right leg?

With all the heavy lifting behind me, in Episode Three I finally get into joinery. Arguably joinery is one of my most favorite aspects of woodworking. But this is no ordinary project. Dozens of mortises, sliding dovetails, and nearly 50 components making up the carcass alone, this can get complicated fast. So organization is critical. I have lots of shelving units in my shop for quickly storing or retrieving pieces as I need them, and keeping track of where everything is. I think this project would be hard to mange in an unorganized shop. But enough of me complaining, this video shows the layout of the leg joinery, as well as one final bit of dimensioning.

two good questions. As for the first, I actually just upgraded to a Kodak Zi8 HD cam with an external mic (which you will first see in episode 6 I believe). I use Cyberlink Power Director for all my editing.

As for the second question, the triple tenon does create a wood movement challenge, which is why I changed the joinery in the sides to use frame and panel for added stability. The only way to safely use the triple tenon is to leave the top and bottom tenons short by 1/16", and only glue the middle tenon. That will allow the top and bottom tenons to move seasonally within the mortises. To me this isn't as strong a joint as a frame and panel with a glued bottom tenon, and sliding dovetail on top (hence the design change on the sides).